


feels like the first time

by obsetress



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: (don't worry tho it's not like anyone dies), (i really didn't mean for there to be so much but), (oh well), 5+1, Canon Compliant, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Fluff, and one time they celebrated a tenth, anyway, but only by virtue (vice?) of bly canon compliance, five times dani and jamie celebrated first anniversaries, it's another 10th anniversary fic!, some light angst too (if you squint), some light smut i guess, woohoo!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:54:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28908168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obsetress/pseuds/obsetress
Summary: Jamie looks back up at Dani, gaze serious. “I like you, Dani. A lot. And this… As much or as little time as we have, this is special. And I think that’s worth celebrating. So,” and there's a newfound lightness to her tone, “I think we should start. And celebrate as much as we can. And if all that turns out to be is a bunch of firsts,” she shrugs, “then so be it. But it’s… It’s what you deserve. Whatwedeserve. And… I dunno what you think about that, but it’s the truth, so––”“Jamie,” Dani’s voice is quiet, hoarse, and when Jamie lifts her eyes back to hers, Dani’s eyes are misty and wide and there’s a smile stretching across her face.They’re quiet for a minute, holding each other’s gaze, a hopeful smile eking out across Jamie’s face, too.“We do,” Dani whispers, “we do deserve it, don’t we?”or:five times dani and jamie celebrated firsts, and one time they celebrated a 10th
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 45
Kudos: 200





	feels like the first time

**Author's Note:**

> Wild week here in the Bly Manor fandom, huh?

_or:_ five times dani and jamie celebrated firsts, and one time they celebrated a 10th

* * *

**i.**

The first time it happens, Dani wakes up to Jamie grinning down at her, laden tray in her hands.

She’s used to Jamie waking up before her, used to Jamie slipping out of bed with––before, on some days––the sun, used to waking up clutching Jamie’s pajama top tight to her chest, tucked carefully into her arms as Jamie had shed it, getting dressed for the day ahead. 

Sundays, however, are for sleeping in. For lazy mornings spent together, Dani’s arm tightening around Jamie’s waist, pulling her back in closer at the earliest hint of restlessness, of Jamie stirring, of an anticipated, inescapable, roll out of bed.

“Jamie…” Dani yawns, blinking sleep out of bleary eyes and rubbing the heel of her palm against her cheek, “what’s this?”

Jamie only grins wider, plopping down onto the bed––Dani’s suddenly wide awake and sitting up, her arms shooting out to spot the tray, glass of lemonade wobbling dangerously there––and for all her careless haphazard, Dani thinks, relaxing as Jamie sinks into their mattress, there’s a grace there. More grace than Jamie would ever own up to, Dani muses, falling back against her pillows, smiling, and more grace than she herself has, certainly, for all her trying, but that’s Jamie.

“It’s breakfast,” Jamie says, eyes twinkling, “isn’t it?”

“Is it?” Dani appraises the tray in Jamie’s lap, skeptical, eyebrows raising in gentle challenge as her gaze finds its way back to Jamie.

Jamie’s grin doesn’t falter.

“I didn’t know…” Dani’s eyes soften, even as they sweep back across the plate Jamie’s prepared, “I didn’t know mashed potatoes were considered a breakfast food nowadays. Or peas,” she adds, “for that matter.” She looks back up at Jamie, unable to help herself as she takes in Jamie’s grin, proud and enduring, Dani’s fingers sliding across the sheets to cover Jamie’s, still holding the tray, the corners of Dani’s pursed lips curling up in spite of themselves.

“Plenty of kinds of breakfast potato,” Jamie supplies easily, shrugging, “why not let mashed have their day in the sun?”

Dani hums.

“But,” Jamie’s words are careful now, deliberate as she stretches her thumb up to trace Dani’s, tray wobbling, stilling, beneath their hands, “there is a bit of a reason for it.”

Dani pushes herself back up, scooting in closer and sliding a leg against Jamie’s back, resting her knee against it, head tilted, attentive.

“I’ve been thinking,” Jamie starts, leaning back into Dani’s leg, “about us. This. Time”––there’s a sharp intake of breath from Dani, and Jamie presses her thumb, reassuring, into hers, Jamie’s voice quieter now––“and not knowing. Taking things one day at a time.”

Dani fights the clench of her jaw, trusts Jamie despite the inclination, grasping, hanging on tightly to her every word.

“And that’s all well and good,” Jamie continues, “but I…” Jamie flushes, looking down and furrowing her brow, gathering her thoughts before looking back up at Dani, gaze serious. “I like you, Dani. A lot. And this… As much or as little time as we have, this is special. And I think that’s worth celebrating. So,” she pulls her hand away from Dani’s, and when she wraps her fingers around the glass of lemonade to pass it to her, the press of Jamie’s fingers belies the newfound lightness of her tone, “I think we should start. And celebrate as much as we can. And if all that turns out to be is a bunch of firsts,” she shrugs, “then so be it. But it’s…” She looks down again, at the tray, eyes sliding over sausage links and tomatoes, grilled meticulously so as to avoid the burntness that usually characterizes Jamie’s cooking, “it’s what you deserve. What _we_ deserve. And… I dunno what you think about that, but it’s the truth, so––”

“Jamie,” Dani’s voice is quiet, hoarse, and when Jamie lifts her eyes back to hers, Dani’s eyes are misty and wide and there’s a smile stretching across her face.

They’re quiet for a minute, holding each other’s gaze, a hopeful smile eking out across Jamie’s face, too.

“We do,” Dani whispers, “we do deserve it, don’t we?”

Jamie swallows, nods. “Yeah,” she whispers back.

Dani bites her lip, eyes flitting down to the tray, precarious in Jamie’s lap, to the glass in her own hand.

She decides to kiss Jamie anyway. 

It’s gentle, quick, her lips brushing against Jamie’s, and Dani can feel lemonade sloshing over the edge of her glass, but it’s worth it, she decides, for the way she can feel Jamie smiling against her lips, the way she can feel Jamie finally exhale, relieved.

“So,” Dani pulls away, smile mischievous, “what all do we celebrate?”

“All of it,” Jamie says confidently, “all the little things. Every chance we get.” 

“All of it?” Dani raises an eyebrow.

“All of it,” Jamie says again, grinning.

Dani brings the glass to her lips, drinking deeply, smiling, still, around the rim, holding Jamie’s gaze as she does.

Jamie watches her closely.

“Okay,” Dani finally says, lowering the glass, bumping her knee lightly against Jamie’s back, “so what are we celebrating today? Besides, of course,” and Jamie can tell from the way her eyes twinkle, from the appearance of her dimples, from the slight rise of Dani’s shoulders, angling in, surreptitious, towards Jamie, that Dani’s about to say something she thinks is terribly clever, “mashed potatoes’ day in the sun?”

Jamie only purses her lips in response, shaking her head. “We,” she says pointedly, “are celebrating the first anniversary of the day we met. And this,” she nods at the tray in front of her, “is what you were eating the first time you laid eyes on me.”

Dani’s laugh is bright and loud and music to Jamie’s ears. “The first time _I_ laid eyes on _you_ , huh?”

“Mmhmm,” Jamie nods, voice cool, “couldn’t take them off me. Don’t argue with me, Poppins, I remember.” 

“It’s funny,” Dani leans forward, and when she brushes the length of her body across Jamie’s chest, Jamie knows it’s on purpose, knows she’s only just beginning to pay for her historicization, subjective and smug, Dani grabbing a fork and spearing one of the sausage links, “because I seem to remember you ignoring me. Didn’t even look at me at all.” Dani takes a bite of sausage, chewing, looking placidly at Jamie as she swallows. “I’m not sure that constitutes a meeting, does it?”

Jamie shakes her head, biting back a grin. “Oh, I looked at you, alright.”

“Mm,” Dani takes another bite of sausage, eyes heavy on Jamie, unconvinced.

“Besides,” Jamie grips the tray tighter with her left hand, adjusting its balance on her lap, sliding her right up and along the inside of Dani’s thigh, casual, nonchalant, “I remembered the date, didn’t I? Remembered what we were eating for lunch, didn’t I?”

There’s Dani’s dimples again, Jamie thinks, and she’s stubborn, so stubborn, even as she holds her fork out to Jamie, offering her the next bite of sausage, even as Jamie can feel goosebumps springing up under her ministrations, the soft skin of Dani’s thigh pricking the pads of her fingers.

“What if,” Jamie pauses to take a bite, then leans in towards Dani, the corners of her lips quirking up, “I make it up to you now? Pay you…” Her fingers slip underneath the hem of Dani’s sleep shorts, still there, “a bit of extra attention today?”

Dani doesn’t even blink, eyes still trained on Jamie, and christ, Jamie muses, for someone so easily unmoored by so little, Dani’s determined when she wants to be. “Only a bit?”

“Mm,” Jamie slides her hand up further, just a little, the edge of Dani’s shorts dusting across her knuckles, and tilts her head, considering, “maybe more. Could be convinced.”

“Don’t see why I should have to convince you,” Dani’s voice wavers in spite of herself, “when you’re the one making it up to me.”

“Touché,” Jamie’s voice is low, Dani’s eyelids fluttering shut as Jamie’s fingers graze the crease of her thigh. 

“Jamie…” 

“Yeah?” Jamie’s voice is innocent, lilting, and immediately betrayed by its roughness.

Dani’s is breathy, whimpering, but: “not before I eat my breakfast peas.”

It’s one of Jamie’s favorite things, the thin line that demarcates Dani’s determination from her stubbornness, the way Dani walks it like a tightrope, her wavering never graceless but calculated. It’s a flawless performance, Dani having spent years crafting it to perfection, honed by her time at Bly, by Dani’s burgeoning persistence to want and to let herself want, to live, unabashed and unapologetic, in spite of it all.

It’s a flawless performance, and Dani, pleased with herself, knows she’s stuck the landing.

That’s one of Jamie’s favorite things, too.

“Screw the bloody peas,” Jamie’s hand slides between Dani’s legs, the hem of her shorts grazing Jamie’s wrist now, “you didn’t eat them then, and you’re not gonna eat them now.”

“You remember,” Dani manages, breath shallow, voice taut, “that I didn’t eat my peas?”

“Mmhmm,” Jamie murmurs, “told you I was looking at you.”

Dani whines, high in her throat, and she bites her lip. “Jamie…” 

“Mm?”

“The tray––”

“The tray’s fine,” Jamie’s voice is calm, collected, if low, “you might wanna put that glass on the nightstand, though, yeah?”

What’s left of Dani’s lemonade makes it to the nightstand with minimal spills, Dani’s hand finding its way back to the bed, her fingers tangling themselves, tight, into their sheets.

“When you were looking at me,” Dani arches into Jamie’s hand, “could you tell?”

“Tell what?” Jamie adjusts herself, leaning closer into Dani, her left hand firm around the tray, her right moving, leisurely, underneath Dani’s shorts.

“How bad I wanted to kiss you,” Dani breathes, “from the second you–– From the second–– Jamie, _please_ –– I just wanted to… Push you against the counter and…” She trails off, pressing her eyes shut again, her head falling back. “Jamie…” 

Jamie wants nothing more in that moment than to lean forward and kiss her, but Dani was right, Dani was right because Dani’s always right, even when she’s wrong, and the tray––

Jamie settles for curling her fingers instead.

“That’s another one, then,” she chirps, grin widening as she feels Dani’s leg shudder against her back, Dani gasping, “the first anniversary of the first time you wanted to kiss me.” 

When Jamie admits, later, she’d wanted to kiss Dani too––just as much, that she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it all day––Dani makes her put the tray down.

“First anniversary of the first time _you_ laid eyes on _me_ ,” Dani murmurs, fervent against Jamie’s lips, sliding one leg over Jamie’s newly freed lap and taking Jamie’s face in her hands, “first anniversary of the first time _you_ wanted to kiss _me_ ,” and her hands slide down to rest against Jamie’s chest, her lips tracing the fine line of Jamie’s jaw, “first anniversary of the first time _you_ couldn’t stop thinking about _me_.”

“Haven’t stopped a second since,” Jamie gasps, angling her head back to give Dani more access to her neck.

Jamie can feel Dani’s smile, wide against her skin, and Dani tips them backwards, the two of them falling onto the bed, laughing.

“We’re celebrating them all,” Dani whispers, kissing Jamie again, “every single one.”

And they do.

**ii.**

It isn’t two weeks later when they’re kissing in the back room of the Leafling, knees bumping clumsily into each other’s on the futon (Jamie had spent an entire afternoon putting it together when they’d first opened, alternating between cursing, scowling at the small hand wrench in her grasp, and insisting to Dani with that air of lighthearted gravity, the one that never fails to make her melt, that she just wants Dani to be able to be comfortable), their hands wandering, Dani’s grabbing at Jamie’s shoulders, Jamie’s wrapping themselves in the soft linen of Dani’s blouse.

“So yeah,” Jamie husks when they pull away to breathe, Dani’s lips following hers, her forehead pressing up against Jamie’s as they catch their breath, “it’s not another greenhouse, not really, but I figure it’s close enough.” 

They’re celebrating the first anniversary of their first kiss, needy and inevitable and ill-fated as it had been, and Jamie had meant to wait until closing, to order dinner, to set it up in the back room with candles and their small desk as a makeshift table, but then Dani had swept back into the Leafling, their lunches in hand, hair tousled and cheeks flushed and launching excitedly into a story about a dog she’d seen on her way to the sub shop, and Jamie hadn’t wanted to wait any longer.

“I hope you’re not that committed to recreating it,” Dani leans in again, presses her lips once, twice, against Jamie’s, “because I’m not going anywhere. And I don’t want you to, either.”

Jamie laughs, low and short. “I could never,” she murmurs between kisses, “I like kissing you too much.”

“Good,” Dani giggles into Jamie’s mouth, tongue swiping across her bottom lip, “don’t ever stop.”

“Won’t,” Jamie groans, one hand sliding up and around the back of Dani’s head, pulling her in closer, “if I have my way.”

Dani’s fingers flex against Jamie’s shoulders. “Promise?”

“Promise,” Jamie reaches down, and, bracing the two of them against the futon, lowers Dani to the cushions, following, settling, easy and familiar, between her legs. “Might starve,” she kisses her again, “suffer from severe sleep deprivation, but…” she chuckles, Dani’s tongue flicking against hers, “worth it.”

Dani hums, wrapping her arms around Jamie’s shoulders, pulling her in closer, Jamie grinning against her lips.

“Y’know,” Jamie mouths her way up Dani’s jaw, tugging Dani’s earlobe gently between her teeth, “I would’ve kissed you like this, then, if we’d kept…” 

“Jamie,” Dani whines, fingers pressing into Jamie’s back, “kissing, please.”

“Okay, yeah,” Jamie’s lips meander down Dani’s neck, sensitive spots second nature to her by now, Jamie pausing, thoughtful, to suck at a pulse point, teeth gentle as they nip at pale skin, tongue flattening, soothing, “but I would have… Couldn’t stop thinking about it, even while I was gone––”

Dani’s thigh, pressing up, firm, between her legs, silences her.

“Right,” Jamie gasps, Dani’s fingers tangling in her hair, tugging her, softly, back up to Dani’s mouth, “kissing, right.”

Time has provided distance enough to broach the subject, Dani’s flight forgiven, Jamie’s hurt healed, and so Jamie’s told her, before, how she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about their kiss.

How driving home, Owen slumped, snoring, against the window in the passenger’s seat of her truck, it had taken root in her head, urgent and alive and insatiable.

How it’d followed her, a ghost of her own, into her flat, Jamie unable to think of anything else as she’d forced herself into a searing shower, hand drifting up to her shoulder, squeezing softly, remembering the pressure, sure, from Dani’s fingers while feeling the press, needy, of her own against her skin. 

How she’d laid awake all night after the fact, chastising herself, nails digging into her palms, ignoring the voice––Tamara’s voice, still––warring with her own, adamant, futile, that it wasn’t her fault, ultimately succumbing not to sleep but to something else, to the phantom of Dani’s hand sliding down Jamie’s sleeve, grasping helplessly at her own as Jamie had stood, pulled it away, left.

How, in the days immediately after, away from the manor, Dani’s lips had followed her, their haunting of Jamie ceaseless and clamorous: the confidence with which, even as Dani in her entirety had trembled, Dani’s lips had found hers; the way her smile had felt, blinding, even in the dark of the greenhouse, against Jamie’s, their teeth knocking together, bungling, before Jamie had pulled her in closer; Dani’s refusal to pull away, forgoing fresh breath in favor of Jamie’s lips, Dani’s following hers, resolute and insistent and absolutely perfect.

How, one night, exhausted and sleepless, beleaguered by the specter of anger and grief and so much guilt, Jamie, staring up at her ceiling, had dared herself to wonder what would have happened if Dani hadn’t pulled away, if she hadn’t left. She’d imagined Dani’s hands, shaking, pushing her coat back and off her shoulders; had imagined pressing Dani, carefully, into the couch cushions beneath them; had imagined, her own hand drifting beneath the waistband of her pajama shorts, focusing on Dani, determined and present, rather than the woman, jilted, who’d pulled away, everything that could’ve come next.

Jamie does this. 

She relitigates things, always has. 

Tamara had called it coping, had told Jamie it was an attempt to wrestle control, retroactively, from situations where she’d had none. That the detail of her dwelling, painstaking and immaculate, for all the consternation it caused Jamie, all the angst coalifying, dense and deep, in her bones, let her master the nuances of her most painful moments, creating an illusion, mollifying and powerless, of control.

And to Jamie, Tamara had pulled, effortless, out of her, if Jamie’s in control, Jamie can’t be hurt.

Jamie had known then that Tamara was right, had understood, even, the flaw in her logic, that whatever coping her rumination allowed her now was incidental, her wallowing a murky vestige, but she’d held onto it, anyway. Saved it.

It had kept Jamie alive long enough, she’d figured, and maybe, one day, it would again.

And so in the meantime, she broods.

It doesn’t hurt, she’d thought, pulling her hand out of her shorts and rolling over in bed, burying her face in her pillow, groaning as the shame had begun to sink in, the dread at having to return to the manor in only a few short hours, when it’s the memory of Dani’s lips––finally, _finally_ ––she’s revisiting over and over again.

She thinks the same now, unable to stop herself as she kisses Dani back.

“This is better though,” Jamie manages between kisses, “than that. No offense,” she adds, rushed, breathless, when Dani sighs into her mouth. “It’s just… This… It’s better,” she pulls away from Dani, reaching up to push a stray curl out of her face, looking down at her, “it’s better than I ever thought it could be.”

Dani’s smile, for all her wild persistence, is soft when she looks up at Jamie.

“Yeah,” she whispers, reaching up, cupping Jamie’s cheek, “it is.”

They’re interrupted by the timer Dani had set, holding on to whatever reserve of self-control she’d found as Jamie had tugged her into the back room, signaling the end of their lunch break.

Jamie scowls over at it before looking back down, hopeful, at Dani. “Five more minutes?”

“Mm-mm,” Dani shakes her head, pushing herself up into a sitting position, Jamie moving, sullen, with her. “Should’ve thought of that,” she runs her thumb across the arch of Jamie’s cheek, leans in to kiss her quickly, one last time, “before you decided you wanted to get chatty.”

Jamie groans, flopping back onto the couch as Dani climbs to her feet. “You love my chat.”

“I do,” Dani says matter-of-factly, tucking her shirt back into the waistband of her pants, her hands finding her hips as she looks down at Jamie, “I love your chat and your kisses and everything else your mouth does.”

Jamie groans again.

Dani only shakes her head, huffing out a laugh, and turns towards the door.

“Hey, Poppins?”

Dani pauses, her hand on the doorknob. “Hmm?”

“Can I buy you dinner later?”

“That depends,” Dani says, but Jamie can see the curl of her lips from the couch.

“Depends on what?”

“Will you kiss me on the couch after? With…” she glances around, eyes flitting between the seedlings, the blossoms, the ivy curling around the room, “all the plants watching?”

Jamie laughs and clicks her tongue, reaching her arms above her head, stretching along the length of the couch. “Naughty.”

Dani only shrugs, eyes innocent. “Didn’t stop you the first time, did it?”

“Didn’t stop _you_ the first time, more like.”

“Mm,” Dani’s jaw juts up, out, and Jamie knows she’s pleased with herself. “Better be a good dinner, then. Better make me,” she takes a shaky breath, turns the doorknob, “want to kiss you.”

And then she’s gone, slipping out of the back room and back into the Leafling.

It’s easier, watching Dani pull away this time, when Jamie knows there’ll be a next time, knows Dani will have her pinned to the couch in several hours, knows the two of them will tumble, together, into bed later. 

It’s easier, Jamie thinks, but as she makes her way back out to the front of the shop, as she carefully assembles arrangements of lilies and eucalyptus, as she rings up corsages to a gaggle of teenagers, she can’t help herself.

She thinks about Dani’s lips the rest of the day anyway.

**iii.**

Dani makes the call when it comes to celebrating their first date.

She’d made the call then, too, the day they’d told the Wingraves goodbye, the entirety of her life at Bly, short as it had been, compartmentalized, tucked fastidiously away into bags and packed, orderly, into Jamie’s truck, blonde doll solid and steadfast in Dani’s hand as she’d looked over at Jamie, the manor lost in the glare of her rearview mirror.

The days between––the days after the lake, before their departure––had passed in a blur, Dani having spent them huddled in her room, in her bed, terrified to stay at the manor but unwilling, a newfound heaviness to her bones, her stubbornness honed, somehow, into a sharp edge, to leave. 

Jamie had stayed with her. The whole time, she’d stayed with her.

“Can I stay?” she’d asked, voice low, gentle, when the light had started to wane through the glass panes of Dani’s window the first night, fingers, cautious, seeking out Dani’s under her sheets. 

Dani had turned, staring, her eyes wide, and when she’d whispered “please,” Jamie hadn’t been sure she would have heard it all if not for the part of Dani’s lips, small and pleading in the afterglow.

By the time they’d said their goodbyes, Dani had found herself well enough, together enough, bolstered by the memory of Jamie’s hand wrapping around hers, by the certainty with which she’d known that Jamie would simply be there, waiting, to receive it, to have a drink in the pub below Jamie’s flat.

Well enough, Jamie grinning softly as she’d taken in Dani settled next to her, to smile gently back, whisper “Jamie?”

“Yeah?”

“Is this our first date?”

Jamie hadn’t been expecting it, and Dani had seen the flicker of emotion playing out across her face, tenderness winning out over surprise, flirtation, when Jamie’s brow had smoothed, the corner of her mouth stilled, a delicate shine overtaking her eyes.

“Yeah,” Jamie had whispered back, fingers dipping under the edge of the table to squeeze Dani’s, “yeah, I reckon it is.” 

Dani had smiled wider, and, Jamie had thought, it’d been the first time she’d seen her happy, genuinely happy, since their first night together.

“I know,” Jamie had swallowed, furrowing her brow, “this isn’t exactly what you imagined when you proposed a drink, but…”

“A _boring_ drink,” Dani had corrected, biting her lip.

“A boring drink, yeah,” Jamie had grinned, ducked her head, conceding, then paused, glancing back up at Dani. “But I’m glad,” she had continued, “we finally made it. One way or another. Wouldn’t wanna… Miss this. With you.”

Jamie was meeting her where she was at, Dani had realized then, was holding herself to the same standard of openness, of vulnerability, of fragility. 

“Me neither,” she’d whispered.

They’d made it through one drink, a laugh bursting out of Jamie when Dani had reached for her pint glass, picking it up from the top and sipping cautiously from the rim, before Dani had leaned into Jamie in their booth, pressing their bodies flush, looking up at her from underneath her lashes.

Jamie had known enough to know what that meant, and when they’d made their way up to Jamie’s flat, Jamie locking the door behind them, Dani had pressed her lips to Jamie’s, soft and certain, her fingers dancing, light, along Jamie’s waist.

“Dani…” Jamie had taken Dani’s hands in hers, voice low, tangling their fingers together. “You don’t have to, you know, we can just––”

“I want to.” Dani’s voice had been concrete, firm, the cold steel of absolution made soft, warm. “I… I don’t… I don’t want to lose any more time. I want… This. You.”

Jamie had swallowed, hands tugging Dani in closer, eyes searching her face.

“I want you,” Dani had whispered again, “for as long as I can have you.” 

A year later, Dani thinks, grinning as she holds open the polished wooden door for Jamie, ushering her into the dimly lit bar, Jamie raising her eyebrows and following the flourish of Dani’s hand inside, and she still does.

“So,” Jamie grins sideways at Dani when they slide into their usual booth, hidden in the back corner of the bar and perfect, they’ve long determined, for furtive touches, the glance of Jamie’s lips to the corner of Dani’s proud mouth, the subtle part of Jamie’s legs under the table, Dani’s hand ghosting along the inside of her thigh.

“So,” Dani grins back, “one year ago today, we had our first date.”

“We did,” Jamie nods, distracted, eyes lingering, already, on Dani’s collarbone, tracing the line of Dani’s scoop neck from shoulder to shoulder. 

“The problem is–– My eyes are up here, Jamie.” It’s snapped, playful, and Jamie’s eyes, sparkling, shoot back up to Dani’s, Dani biting her lip, grinning, as she continues, “the problem is… It wasn’t very boring, was it? There was…” she shivers in spite of herself, “a lot… Going on.”

“Good date though,” Jamie murmurs, eyes falling back to Dani’s lips.

“Good date,” Dani agrees, and when she reaches for her glass, it’s the exact same way she had that night, the exact same way she does every time they find themselves at a bar, and Jamie laughs, still. “What?”

“Nothing.” Jamie wants to say something else instead, something so much more, and they both know it, their eyes meeting, holding.

Dani wants to say it, too.

Dani eyes her a moment longer, drinking deeply from her glass, and then she’s setting it back onto the table, Jamie clearing her throat nervously.

“So it wasn’t boring enough for ya,” Jamie diverts, glancing at their fingers, tangled together, resting in Dani’s lap underneath the table. “Do I excite you too much, Poppins?”

Dani’s breath hitches, and she looks askance at Jamie.

Yes, and Jamie knows it, too, always.

“No,” she says slowly, finally, shaking her head, “you’re perfectly boring.” 

Jamie grins.

“But,” Dani continues, pointed, “it’s been a year, and I owe you a date that’s,” she grins, drawling, “ _proper_ borin’. So,” she sits up straighter, shoulders high, and tosses her head back, hair shimmering in the low light of the bar, “I’m going to make it up to you.”

“Oh yeah?” Jamie raises a tentative eyebrow.

“Mmhmm,” Dani hums, continuing. “On this date,” she says, pressing her lips together, clamping down on the smirk threatening to spread across her face, “I’m going to bore you to tears.”

Jamie bursts out laughing.

Dani only looks evenly back at her.

There’s a beat, and Jamie’s laughter catches in her throat, her eyes narrowing. “You’re serious?”

“As a heart attack,” Dani says solemnly. “Now, have you ever heard about the Honey War?”

“Can’t say I have, no.”

“Well,” Dani leans in, resting her elbows on the table, eyes bright and excited, and Jamie notices, stomach surging, Dani’s made the switch to her teacher voice, “have you ever noticed how the southern border of Iowa isn’t quite a straight line?”

“This,” Jamie observes mildly, two hours and two drinks apiece later, Dani clumsily nudging her up onto the sink in the bar bathroom, tugging at the dark denim of Jamie’s jeans as she drops to her knees, “isn’t very boring.”

“If I’d have known,” Dani breathes, pressing a kiss to the inside of Jamie’s knee, “you’d get so invested in Iowan geopolitics,” she slides her hands along the lean muscle of Jamie’s thighs, tugging her closer to the edge of the sink, “and that I’d find it so hot,” she nudges Jamie’s legs apart, “I would have chosen something different.”

Jamie grins. “There’s the rub,” she slides her hands behind her, bracing herself against the counter, gasping, as Dani licks, long and hard, up the inside of her thigh, “you could talk about dirt and I’d be invested,” she lets her head tip back, falling against the mirror, “solely because it’s you, isn’t it?”

Dani nips at the swell of her inner thigh in response, savoring Jamie’s hiss above her. “If I talked about dirt,” she flattens her tongue against the red mark blooming under her mouth, “you’d be interested anyway.”

“Got me there.” Jamie raises one of her hands, pressing it back against the mirror now, pushing herself forward into Dani. “Fuck, Dani––”

“Yeah?” Dani’s tongue drags along the edge of Jamie’s underwear, teasing.

“I… I need––”

“Tell me what you need, baby,” Dani murmurs against the cotton of Jamie’s underwear, tongue darting, flicking, and when Jamie only groans in response, rocking herself against Dani’s mouth, Dani pauses, pulling away.

Jamie whimpers, a hand dropping to Dani’s head, threading into her hair.

“Would it help,” Dani’s eyes, glinting wickedly, find Jamie’s and she ducks her head again, looping her fingers into the waistband of Jamie’s underwear, pulling, “if I told you more about Iowa’s tallgrass prairie conservation efforts?”

(If Dani chooses something Jamie might actually be interested in, she thinks, grinning, teasing, against Jamie, tugging one of Jamie’s legs over her shoulder, well. She’s already blown boring.)

**iv.**

Exactly one year and a day later, they celebrate their first anniversary of saying “I love you.”

They celebrate it tangled in bed, Jamie’s head resting on Dani’s chest, her leg slung over Dani’s waist, Dani’s fingers tracing idly up and down along the smooth ridge of Jamie’s spine. 

Dani had woken her up, soft kisses pressed to Jamie’s shoulder, hand dragging down Jamie’s stomach, between her legs, and Jamie had been pressing back into her, moaning softly, before she’d even opened her eyes.

“Good way to celebrate, this,” Jamie says now, propping her chin on Dani’s shoulder, grinning up at her. 

Dani hums in agreement.

“What if,” Jamie licks her lips, drops a quick kiss to Dani’s collarbone, “we did this all day?”

Dani arches an eyebrow. “All day?” 

“Yeah,” Jamie drags her foot, slow, tedious, her eyes mischievous, along Dani’s calf, “all day.”

“Mm,” Dani rolls onto her side and pulls Jamie into her, Jamie’s leg slotting neatly between hers. “We haven’t spent all day in bed in a while.”

“We haven’t,” Jamie echoes, tucking her head underneath Dani’s chin, lips soft against Dani’s throat. “Could be nice.” 

“ _Would_ be”––Dani gasps, correcting, challenging, even as Jamie nips at the hollow of her throat, the blunt of Dani’s nails carving crescents into Jamie’s back––“really nice.”

Jamie grins against Dani’s skin, can feel Dani’s flush beneath her lips. “It’s decided, then.”

Dani makes a contented noise in the back of her throat, and, grinning, pulls Jamie tighter against her, hitching her leg up around Jamie’s waist, pressing her heel into Jamie’s back.

“Poppins,” Jamie breathes, and Dani giggles into her hair. 

“I can’t believe we’ve been doing this a whole year,” Dani whispers then, and the awe in her voice, she thinks, isn’t at the amount of time that’s come and gone, that she’s still here despite it, but at the immensity of their love, at how much they have to celebrate, still, at all the celebrations spreading out, seemingly, into an endless time.

They’d celebrated their first anniversary of living together, tricky as it had been to pin down. (“Livin’ together… It’s not as much about the place, is it?” Jamie had asked, perched on the edge of the bathtub, watching as Dani had carefully applied toner, eye cream, lotion, her fingers dotting light circles across the apples of her cheeks, circling the tender skin around her eyes. “No,” Dani had murmured, finding Jamie’s eyes in the mirror, “I’m not sure it is.”) This year, having realized it belatedly, they’d opted to celebrate it a year after their arrival in Vermont, but next year, they’d decided, they would celebrate it the day Jamie had asked, low, gentle, if she could stay with Dani, could spend the sparse remainder of Dani’s nights at the manor with her. Dani, smug, pleased, had pointed out that they hadn’t spent a night apart since, and Jamie had only chuckled, crossing behind Dani to wrap her arms around her waist, pulling Dani back into her. “Look at you, always getting your way,” she’d murmured, and Dani had only beamed, hands covering Jamie’s, taking in their reflection in the mirror. 

They’d celebrated their first anniversary of opening the Leafling, popping champagne behind the front desk––“Jamie, watch the flowers!” “Excuse me? Is that Dani Clayton telling me how to mind my own plants?”––and sharing their joy, usually kept so private, with their regular customers, doling out plastic flutes of champagne just before closing.

There had even been one day when Dani’d come home, and, her grin all dimples and teeth, plopped two cupcakes unceremoniously on the kitchen counter. 

“What’s this, then?” Jamie had asked, eyebrows raised, and whatever she’d expected, it hadn’t been––

“We’re celebrating. One year ago today,” Dani’s voice had been light and sweet and almost unbearably self-satisfied, “you finally admitted that sweet tea was good.”

Jamie had only scowled back at her, but when Dani had shrugged and reached for the cupcakes with a “well, I’m happy to eat both of these myself if you don’t want––”, Jamie had reached out, sullen, and snatched one away.

“I don’t see why you’re so mad about it,” Dani had chirped around a mouthful of funfetti, “when you have the biggest sweet tooth out of anyone I’ve ever met. Including,” she’d leaned forward then, grin softening, and pressed her lips to the corner of Jamie’s mouth, kissing away a smudge of frosting, “nine years’ worth of elementary schoolers.”

“Yeah,” Jamie says now, wrestling her head out from under Dani’s chin, pulling away to look up at her. “A whole year’s worth of celebrating. Something special, that.”

“I like celebrating,” Dani ducks her head, nuzzling into Jamie, “with you.” 

“Me too.” Jamie’s quiet for a moment, and then she’s untangling herself from Dani, propping her head up on her elbow, serious. “Can I ask you something?”

Dani mimics Jamie’s posture, propping herself up across from her, Dani’s eyes never leaving Jamie’s. “Always.”

“This one…” Jamie starts. “This anniversary, saying ‘I love you’... When was the first time you wanted to? You knew?” 

They both know the truth of it, that while they’d first said the words one year ago––Jamie beaming, proud, at the front desk of the Leafling, Dani murmuring them, later, into Jamie’s ear, two fingers knuckle deep in her in the back room, pushing Jamie just over the edge––the love between them had been realized, solidified, long before that.

Dani knows that Jamie had held off saying it, had committed an entire year’s worth of effort to doing so (admirable even for Jamie, she thinks, for whom self-containment is a virtue held in the highest esteem), for her. Instead, they’d spun circles around the subject with a grace evasive and uncharacteristic, even for Jamie, refusing to look it in the eye or call it by name.

It had been said (by both of them, frequently) in fewer words, or no words at all, settling instead in the squeeze of a hand, the scrupulous attempted brewing of tea, or the kept promise, enduring and assured, of company. 

It had been easier that way, for Dani, just as had been the first three decades of her life: the thing, amorphous and huge and threatening to swallow her whole, was nothing without a name, she told herself. It was easy enough to reason that it was the act of speaking something, of instilling it with such credence, that made it real rather than the thing itself––not the coil, low in her stomach, at the brush of a woman’s hand across her back, or Jamie’s arms, solid and fixed, wrapped firmly around her throughout the nights after the lake.

If it’s not real, Dani had figured, she hadn’t had to worry about hurting Jamie. Not nearly as much.

Jamie, on some level, had understood that. Despite the weight of her love, heavy and unending and filling her up and up and up with nowhere to go, she had understood that. And so she’d held back. For Dani.

Until she hadn’t.

Until she hadn’t, and Dani, just as she had those years ago, had only felt relief. 

“I love you, Jamie,” she’d murmured, joyous, free, her breath hot against Jamie’s ear, fingers curling, dedicated, into her, “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Dani’s answer is immediate. “I knew in the greenhouse,” she says, “before we kissed. You… You listened to me, and you didn’t… Judge me, and I _know_ ,” her eyes flit nervously down, her jaw clenching and unclenching, before her eyes find Jamie’s again, “that’s the bare minimum, but… It was different. With you. You… Saw me? In a way no one had before. And then you…” she laughs, remembering. “You shouted ‘oi! Dead boyfriend!’ and that was it.”

Jamie’s listening, eyebrows raised, gaze soft. “That was it?”

“Yeah,” Dani whispers, “that was the moment I knew.”

They’re quiet, Jamie’s hand gliding over the bedsheet between them, finding Dani’s. 

“What about you?” Dani sniffs, shaking it off. “When did you know?”

Jamie’s quiet for another minute, thinking, her lips pursed. “I don’t think…” she says slowly, finally, “there was one moment. Instead it was like… It was like I just realized, one day, that I did, and I had, and that every moment up until then had been leading me to it.” She furrows her brow. “Does that sound totally mental, or…?”

“Nah,” Dani squeezes her hand. “Not mental.”

“You know what finally did it?” Jamie perks up, her eyes twinkling.

“What?”

“We were brushing our teeth one night, in that motel, I think, the first one we stayed at when we got to the States? And you finished, and you did this…” She laughs. “You did this _snarl_ , Dani, you did this little snarl as you looked at your teeth so you could see them all, make sure they were clean, and then you laughed at yourself after and it was just like…” When Jamie laughs again, her laugh is warm, the corners of her mouth curling up. “It was just like ‘fuck. I love ya,’” she shrugs. “And suddenly everything made sense.”

“Yeah,” Dani scoots closer to her, closing the gap between them, her eyes dipping down to Jamie’s lips, “yeah, that’s exactly it.”

In the end, they leave their bed, between them, twice that day: the first time it’s Jamie, having lost spectacularly to Dani after five rounds of Rock Paper Scissors, tugging on a flannel as she makes her way to the front door to pick up their brunch, delivered from the diner down the street, and bring it back to their room, and the second time it’s Dani, gracious if smug, having offered to go and grab their dinner from the door even after besting Jamie, again, in Rock Paper Scissors.

“You’re too cheeky,” Jamie grumbles when Dani slides back into their bed, bag of delivery in hand, Dani grinning over at her, “someone needs to put you in your place.”

“You volunteerin’?” Dani has the foresight, at least, to lean over the edge of their bed, resting their dinner on the floor, against her nightstand.

“Probably should,” Jamie wraps her arms around Dani’s waist, “dunno anyone else who’s quite so fit for the job.” 

Dani leans down, her hair falling around the two of them, lips close enough to Jamie’s that Jamie can feel more than hear the waver of her exhale. “You’re not fit for the job,” she breathes, challenging, “you love me too much.”

She’s right, Jamie thinks, but she’ll be damned if she doesn’t have fun trying anyway. 

**v.**

“Don’t you think,” Jamie arches an eyebrow at Dani, smile lines wry around her mouth, “we’re getting a little too old for this shite?”

Dani raises her eyebrows back, eyes bright, playful. “Did you just call me old?”

“No,” Jamie says quickly, pointedly, pursing her lips, “no, definitely not, I just––”

“You and that,” the corners of Dani’s lips twitch, “beautiful grey streak of yours.”

Jamie’s hand drifts to her hair, pinned back in a reckless bun. “Don’t you start on my grey streak,” she says, affable, “when I called myself old just as much as I did you.”

Dani glances at her, biting her lip as she winds her way through the rows of ski boots available for rental, turning to face Jamie once they’ve rounded a corner, the store’s other patrons out of earshot. “Did you just call my wife old?”

The beam that spreads across Jamie’s face is immediate, blinding, and feels, Dani thinks, exactly like sunshine. 

This weekend bears the first anniversary of the day they’d exchanged rings, the day Jamie had slipped a gold claddagh, hands trembling, onto Dani’s finger, the day Dani had kissed her, as determined and desperate as she had that night all those years ago in the greenhouse, the day Dani had called her, Dani’s whisper sure, breathless, “my wife” for the first time.

Dani thinks she’ll never get over saying it.

Their wedding had been celebrated, the first time, with a trip to Paris, all champagne and chocolate and nights spent, elated and unending, wrapped up in each other, bare skin pressed to bare skin, embellished only by the shine of gold against Dani’s, Jamie’s left hand splayed, pressing, against her stomach, or against Jamie’s, later, Dani’s fingers curling, tight, around the back of Jamie’s neck, Jamie grinding down, hard, fast, onto Dani’s fingers.

They’d planned Paris together, spent the days leading up to it huddled around their kitchen island, excitedly planning their itinerary, and as much as it had been something Jamie had wanted, too, Paris had always been Dani’s dream. She hadn’t made it there the first time she’d been to Europe, had traversed the Netherlands and Sweden, had even made it close, with a short stint in Belgium, but then she’d found her way to England, opting to work for a stint, bolstering her bank account back up before setting off again and, well. Plans had changed.

It’s only fair, then, Dani had resolved, that this trip––if smaller, spanning the indulgence of a four-day weekend––be for Jamie. 

“I know it’s not Christmas,” she’d explained, her voice excited, wavering, a cadence so uniquely Dani, both certain and flighty, somehow, that Jamie can’t help but feel blissfully overwhelmed every time she hears it, “and I know we’ve seen lots of snow since being in Vermont, but… We’ve never done… This? In it, and,” she’d swallowed, smiling hopefully up at Jamie, “I think you’d like it. Skiing, I mean.”

Jamie, however, despite her appreciation, is wary.

“Maybe I did,” she says now, slipping back out of the aisle, squinting at the skis lining the walls. “What’re you going to do about it?”

Dani feels heat rush to her cheeks and ducks her head, collecting herself with a chuckle, before looking back up at Jamie.

Jamie holds her gaze, eyes teasing, challenging, and then they’re widening, shining and distracted, the tension coiling between them suddenly broken. 

Dani blinks.

“Wossat?” Jamie breathes, focus entirely diverted to the wall behind Dani, her provocations forgotten.

Dani turns, laughs, and it feels obvious now, she thinks, that this is the path she should’ve taken in the first place. “It’s a snowboard, Jamie.”

“I wanna do it.” Jamie’s eyes snap back to Dani’s, bright and giddy. “I wanna do that.”

Watching Jamie on the bunny hill, slow-going and meticulous, murmuring a “toe turn,” “heel turn” to herself as she maneuvers her way around the small children gliding easily down the slope quickly becomes a highlight of Dani’s weekend. It’s not something she’s ever seen before, Jamie learning something entirely new, delighting in something wholly foreign to her after nearly four decades of moving through the world. (Watching Jamie learn intimacy, vulnerability, had been the closest she’d gotten, Dani thinks, but Dani, for all her unabashed openness, had been learning it with her, had been so entangled in the process she couldn’t step back to appreciate it from afar.) Jamie’s methodical, careful, and Dani knows her attention to detail is impeccable––she knows it, has felt it, with every inch of her body––but it’s on display now like it never has been before. 

It’s why, Dani knows, Jamie is so good at everything she does. Jamie has a natural inclination for some things, certainly, but more often than not, her attainments are a direct result of her effort, rigorous and unremitting. Jamie pours her whole self into things, and Dani thinks it might be her favorite thing about her. 

Dani hopes, more than anything, that she meets her there, the entirety of herself––for better, for worse––and the entirety of Jamie’s, together.

It’s Dani who falls first, distracted by Jamie’s easy lean as she curls across the slope, and when Jamie skids to a stop beside her, spraying snow all over Dani’s coat, Dani grabs Jamie's hand and tugs her down with her, the two of them overtaken by giggles, cheeks flushed from the snow and the activity and each other. 

The rest of their weekend is spent in their suite at the lodge, curled up together in front of a fire, sipping spiked hot cocoa, and in the lavish jacuzzi there, champagne chilling next to the tub, snow falling, thick and persistent, outside the window.

“You know we’re gonna be sore tomorrow,” Dani says over the rim of her mug, tucking her toes underneath Jamie, basking in the warmth of the fire in front of them. 

“Not sore now,” Jamie demurs, mouth quirking up as she takes a deep sip of hot cocoa, flirtation flippant, contrarian. “And to think earlier _you_ were on _me_ for calling us old.”

“Pretty sure I would remember if I was on you,” Dani murmurs, toes pressing against the backs of Jamie’s thighs, “and besides, it has nothing to do with age.”

“No?”

“No,” Dani takes another drink, decisive. “Everyone gets sore the day after skiing.”

“Well I dunno about tomorrow,” Jamie boasts, “but I’m feeling fit as a fiddle now.”

Dani chuckles softly, eyes dragging up along Jamie’s figure.

“Mayhaps,” Jamie can feel the weight of Dani’s eyes on her, rakes her own up Dani’s legs, “we should take advantage of that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” 

Their eyes linger on each other’s for a moment, and then Jamie’s climbing to her feet, offering Dani her hand.

It’s funny, Dani thinks, Jamie’s hands wrapped around hers, the two of them smiling, giggling, their eyes never leaving each other’s as Jamie walks backwards, tugging her carefully through their suite and towards the jacuzzi, pausing to grab a bottle of champagne from their refrigerator on the way. It’s funny the way her life has turned out. 

For so much of her life, marriage had been a guarantee, the natural end to a progression that had begun before she’d even known what was happening, Dani locked into the crawling track of a fate decided for her long before she’d even known there had been a decision to make. With it came the threat of forever, a lifetime drawn out before her, a narrow path through dense overgrowth, her only options to stick it out, to keep moving forward, or to stop, to lie down and offer herself up as bait, prey to whatever lurked at the margins. Marriage, for so much of Dani’s life, hadn’t been something she’d ever wanted, not really, the prospect heavy, sunken low in her stomach, dark and dense and suffocating.

But now, Dani thinks, letting her eyes drift to her left hand, still tangled with Jamie’s as Jamie busies her right with the faucet, to the gold rings there, it’s all she wants. To be celebrating her first wedding anniversary with Jamie, shimmying out of her shorts and into the jacuzzi, Jamie’s eyes sliding up her legs, somehow feels like the most natural thing in the world.

Marriage, it turns out, hadn’t been what she’d thought at all.

Marriage with Jamie, as it were, turns out to have been something she’d wanted all along.

Dani and Jamie’s relationship has always been easy, effortless; even the difficult parts––owning a business, navigating immigration––had been managed with a calm ease, the two of them moving seamlessly together, each balancing the other, each picking up where the other had left off, each giving more when the other had less to give. Their marriage is no different, really. Having been married for a year now, Dani can say with certainty that marriage hasn’t altered the day to day goings on of their shared life, hasn’t changed them, even, except:

There’s a sort of freedom to it, now. It reminds Dani of when Jamie had finally broken, her love for Dani, nurtured to bloom over the course of a year, spilling out, between a locked shopfront and a moonflower, over the Leafling’s front counter. Dani had felt relief then, coming fast and hard in a rush and release of feeling, but she’d felt a newfound lightness, too. She’d felt free, free to give voice to what she’d been feeling for so long, to speak the thing growing, infinite, inside her, and marriage, she thinks, with Jamie, feels the same. 

(There’s another sort of freedom to it, Jamie will laugh later, between two women. “With a marriage untainted by the law,” she’ll extol, “it can be anything it wants, can’t it?”)

Being married to Jamie, forever doesn’t feel like a threat. It’s the promise of a lifetime, still, but this time it’s a lifetime Dani wants.

Dani wants nothing more than to live in these moments forever––Jamie’s hands, tipping the chilled champagne to her lips; Jamie’s lips, swooping in to kiss away the excess that drips, laughed away, from Dani’s mouth; Jamie’s voice, low and rough, murmuring the words “my wife” in her ear as Dani’s head falls back against the tub and she surrenders to Jamie’s rush and release again and again.

**i.**

Ten whole years together, and they’re still celebrating. 

It had begun nine years ago, Jamie pitching it, nervous, deliberate, to Dani over a tray of mashed potatoes and peas, desperate to cling to Dani––to _them_ ––as long as she could, to pack in a lifetime of celebrations and anniversaries and love, so much love, into the bookended ambiguity that had become the narrative, unfurling and finite, of Dani Clayton’s life.

Time, though, Jamie’s come to think more and more over the years, doesn’t matter. It’s subjective, really. She can beat it.

She can beat it, and they have, so far, together: one year had become two had become three had become five, had become, seemingly, endless. She and Dani Clayton have a life together. Have had a life together. Will have more of one together, so much yet to come.

Theirs is more of a life, Jamie figures, than most people ever get. All of their anniversaries, their celebrations––big and little and dreadfully boring––are already a lifetime’s worth, tipping the scales of their timeline together towards eternity. 

And even after all that, Dani’s still here.

Dani’s still here, and with that, with the years, their time together is only expanding, new anniversaries being added, new bookmarks in their shared story, even as they continue to celebrate the old ones. 

This year, for example, has already given them their first wedding anniversary.

This year has also given them today, their tenth anniversary, the day chosen easily between the two of them, cherry-picked from that desperate blur of their earliest days together, of stolen looks and glancing touches. Ten years ago today, Jamie had taken Dani by the hand and led her to the farthest corner of the grounds at Bly, her flashlight illuminating the dusky shadows, the moonflowers tucked away there baring their petals as Jamie had bared herself. As Dani, just as Jamie had seen her days before, curled together on a couch in the greenhouse, had seen Jamie, and loved her all the more for it.

They have plans for today, but Jamie decides they can wait, content to let Dani sleep, eyes dragging across the line of her brow, smooth, peaceful, swooping along the soft part of her lips, the exhalations of Dani’s gentle snores delicate against Jamie’s mouth.

When Dani wakes up, Jamie knows, the first thing she’ll do is nuzzle into Jamie, tighten her arm around Jamie’s waist, pull her in closer. She’ll keep Jamie in bed as long as she can, and Jamie will let her, snuggles giving way to sleepy salutations giving way to skin and slick.

Jamie will murmur, fingers idly connecting the freckles dotting Dani’s chest after, “ten whole years of waking up to you, Poppins.”

Dani will breathe in, shaky and hard, her arms tightening around Jamie. “You’re still not sick of me?” Her voice, though they both know Jamie isn’t, will waver, hopeful.

“Never,” Jamie will whisper back, her voice higher than she’d like. “Never sick of ya.”

And Dani will giggle “good” and Jamie will giggle “good” back, and then they’ll be kissing again, and Dani will be flipping them, rolling over on top of Jamie to press hungry lips to her neck.

When they eventually get up, Jamie will pad to the kitchen, socks pulled to her ankles, to make tea. Dani will follow, her oversized t-shirt hanging mid-thigh, to watch.

(Dani always watches, determined, eager to figure out tea once and for all.

She never does.)

They’ll get dressed––it’ll take a while, Jamie thinks, the corner of her mouth quirking up, because Dani won’t be able to stop stealing kisses as they slip on their shirts, Jamie’s a soft linen, Dani’s a sturdy denim––before going out to breakfast this time, at the diner down the street. Dani will order an egg white omelette, and Jamie will get the hungry man special.

“Dunno why they have to call it the hungry man,” she’ll grumble to Dani as soon as their server is gone, “like women don’t work up an appetite, too. Christ.”

“Those are the two genders aren’t they?” Dani will proffer in response. “Hungry man and peckish woman.”

“You mean hungry man and egg white omelette?”

Dani will give her that look, then, the raised eyebrows and pursed lips that tell Jamie she’ll be in trouble later, but Jamie will only laugh.

Dani will laugh too, and after their server drops off Jamie’s food, she’ll glance, innocent, over at Jamie’s three plates and politely inquire exactly how Jamie plans to eat three eggs, two pancakes, two slices of toast, three sausage links, three strips of bacon, and a heaping bowl of home fries when one of her favorite grievances with America is the audacity of its portion sizes. 

“Anything is possible,” Jamie will inform her cooly, flashing a winning grin, “when I have you munchin’ off my plate the whole time.”

Dani won’t deny it; instead, she’ll only shrug and grin back, chirping a “what’s mine is yours” as she reaches over to steal a slice of bacon, happily crunching the end into her mouth.

Later that afternoon, they’ll start to get ready for dinner, and when Dani pulls her dress on, tugging velvety maroon down the swell of her hips, Jamie will find herself impatient, already, for dinner to be over. She’ll say as much, and Dani, grinning, will tug her in by her suspenders, kissing her hard and fast. “Me too,” she’ll whisper, and half an hour later they’ll both be in the bathroom redoing their lipstick, Jamie scrubbing at what’s left of Dani’s, smeared across her neck.

Their distance travelled to dinner will be short––from the bathroom to their living room––but Jamie will offer Dani her arm nonetheless, and Dani will take it graciously, leaning into Jamie as they go. When they get to the table, candles already burning on a small plate in the middle, Dani will grab one of the chairs and pull it around to settle it right next to the other. It’s always been unspoken, the way they sit next to each other, never across, each always in contact with the other, Jamie’s arm slung low around Dani’s waist, Dani’s hand stroking, reaching, dangerous, along the length of Jamie’s thigh. 

Here, in the comfort of their apartment, Jamie will wrap her arm around Dani’s shoulders, and Dani will lean, fully, into Jamie.

They’ll pop champagne and Dani will squeal, Jamie laughing as she fills two flutes, and they’ll lean further into each other as they toast to ten years. 

They’ll eat the dinner they’d made together––at first, Jamie had insisted on making it all herself, but Dani had shot it down almost immediately (“it’s not that your cooking is _bad_ ,” she insisted, assuaging, “I mean, it is, a little, but this… This whole thing, this whole time, it’s not just about you, or me. It’s about both of us. Together. What _we_ deserve, remember?”)––and it’ll take hours with the way they keep stopping, turning, giggling into each other, reminiscing over the last ten years, rehashing old disagreements (“they were _my_ overalls, Dani, when have you ever owned a pair of overalls?”), pouring more flutes of champagne. 

“What’s been your favorite thing?” Jamie will pose, keenly aware of Dani’s fingers lazily tracing the inseam of her pants.

“About all of it?”

“About all of it.”

Dani will only grin, wide and goofy, at her. “You.” 

“Me?”

“That’s what I said.”

“It’s all about me already though, isn’t it?”

Dani will purse her lips, thoughtful. “Okay then,” she’ll say, “what’s been your favorite thing?”

Jamie will grin evenly back, her fingers dipping under the strap of Dani’s dress, dragging across the crest of her shoulder blade. “You.”

They’ll stare at each other for a moment and then Dani will scoff, laughing, and Jamie will laugh too, choking out a high-pitched “I mean it!” and Dani will nod, knowing, because she’ll have meant it too.

Once their laughter will die down and they'll have tossed back their last sips of champagne, Dani will turn back to Jamie, her eyes wide and searching, and her voice will tremble when she whispers, “Jamie?”

“Dani?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For keeping me company.”

And Jamie will have no choice but to take her into her arms.

Dani stirs then, her arm tightening around Jamie’s waist, and Jamie lets herself be drawn in closer, savoring the flex of Dani’s arm against her skin, the way Dani’s thigh slides between hers as their bodies meet, flush. 

This, too, she thinks, is worth celebrating––the quiet as much as the monumentous, the weight of Dani’s pinkie finger wrapped around hers, the gentle grace of her sighs when Dani snuggles closer into Jamie, the warm glint of gold on gold when Jamie reaches for Dani’s hand, their fingers threading together––and maybe, she realizes, eyes fluttering shut as Dani squirms in closer to her, whimpering happily, they already are. That these moments, small and constant, are celebrations in themselves. 

And what a life they make.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to yearinla for being my forever sounding board, and talking out bits of this with me when I got stuck, particularly when it came to the chronology of Dani and Jamie's first date.
> 
> Thank you too to Shananigans402 for swooping in to read this over and assuage my anxieties about characterization in something that's, for once, not an AU. (And thank you, too, for helping me work through that parenthetical!)
> 
> Thank you especially to carrot_garden, my best Bly bro, for talking pretty much this entire fic out with me, and being down to puzzle out plot points big and embellishments small. It truly would not exist without them, and I'm forever grateful. I can't wait until we make each other cry again. (It'll probably be soon.)
> 
> Finally, thank you all for reading! I appreciate it, and any and all comments y'all have. You all make my day, seriously.
> 
> If you want to get in touch, you can find me here, or over on tumblr at marisas-coulters.


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